UPI Almanac for Monday, May 11, 2020

Today is Monday, May 11, the 132nd day of 2020 with 234 to follow.

The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Neptune and Saturn. Evening stars are Mercury and Venus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include Ottmar Mergenthaler, inventor of the Linotype typesetting machine, in 1854; songwriter Irving Berlin in 1888; dancer/choreographer Martha Graham in 1894; Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali in 1904; aviation pioneer Jacqueline Cochran in 1906; actor Margaret Rutherford in 1892; actor Winstead Sheffield "Doodles" Weaver in 1911; Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman in 1918; actor Bernard Fox in 1927; satirist Mort Sahl in 1927 (age 93); Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam leader, in 1933 (age 87); actor Doug McClure in 1935; singer/songwriter Eric Burdon in 1941 (age 79); artificial heart developer Dr. Robert Jarvik in 1946 (age 74); writer Mike Lupica in 1952 (age 68); actor Natasha Richardson in 1963; actor Tim Blake Nelson in 1964 (age 56); actor Jeffrey Donovan in 1968 (age 52); actor Cory Monteith in 1982; actor Jonathan Jackson in 1982 (age 38); model Blac Chyna, born Angela Renee White, in 1988 (age 33); NFL quarterback Cam Newton in 1989 (age 31); actor Lana Condor in 1997 (age 23); actor Sabrina Carpenter in 1999 (age 21).

On this date in history:

In 1858, Minnesota joined the United States as the 32nd state.

In 1862, the Confederate navy destroyed its iron-clad vessel Merrimac to prevent it from falling into the hands of advancing Union forces.

In 1910, Glacier National Park in Montana was created by an act of Congress.

In 1924, Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler merged their companies, forming Mercedes-Benz.

In 1928, the first regularly scheduled television programs were begun by station WGY in Schenectady, N.Y.

In 1963, bombings in Birmingham, Ala., against non-violent Civil Rights campaigners triggered a crisis which led to the involvement of federal troops.

In 1987, Emmanuel Vitria died in Marseilles in southern France at age 67, 18 years after receiving a transplanted human heart. He was the longest-surviving heart transplant patient at that time.

In 1996, a ValuJet airliner crashed in the Florida Everglades, killing 110 people.

In 1997, world chess champion Garry Kasparov was defeated by a computer, IBM's Deep Blue, in a six-game match in New York.

In 2009, Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, was fired and replaced by Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal. McChrystal resigned a year later following a damning article in Rolling Stone.

In 2010, in discussing sexual-abuse scandals, Pope Benedict XVI said the Roman Catholic Church was undergoing its greatest persecution because of "sin in the church." He called the situation "frightening."

In 2018, an Australian man carried out a murder-suicide, killing himself, his wife, their daughter, and their four grandchildren.

A thought for the day: "Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion." -- American dancer Martha Graham